one of which is dedicated to the ecosystem monitoring site located 3 nautical miles from Stonehaven, 15 miles south of Aberdeen. This site has been sampled on a weekly basis since 1997 for temperature, salinity, nutrients, chlorophyll, phytoplankton and zooplankton. More recently samples have been collected for the assessment of ocean acidification. Marine Scotland Science operates a second ecosystem monitoring site at Loch Ewe on the west coast of Scotland and has other coastal monitoring sites, at which primarily temperature and salinity are measured, around the Scottish coast.